The Dream is Ended
by Esperance
Summary: Neverland, Narnia, and other things the Wammy boys stopped believing in after L's death. Near-centric, implied M/M and unrequited N/M.


Title: The Dream is Ended  
Author: parkingLOTinTHEidiot  
Rating: K  
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: Death Note; Matt, Near; slight M/M and unrequited N/M.  
Word Count: ~1200 words  
Warnings: The author is slightly insane and trying too hard with her symbolism. Author's commentary can be found under esper_kay on Livejournal. Reviews are appreciated.

_"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, Peter Pan. That's where I'll be waiting." - Tinkerbell, (Hook)_

_"The dream is ended: this is the morning." - The Last Battle_

* * *

Little Ben in the downstairs parlor marks the hour, Westminster Chimes ringing through stuffy dormitory rooms and creaking-thin corridors and dusty nooks before retreating with a hollow echo.

Near is the only one who hears, almost pausing to appreciate the sound, the dulcet tones and lingering notes of the last chord familiar as mothers' lullabies. Always striking at the same time and song, no regards to household occupancy or attentiveness. Predictable, maybe. He prefers to think of it as reliable.

But for his pajama-bottomed feet it is slow going to the second floor, and he would rather not be on the staircase when the children rise to eat breakfast. Waking now from the sleep of the innocent and ignorant, sounds from open doors and on wooden floorboards; soon the house will be full of the orphans' endless laughter and rhyming songs and make-believe games and it is another morning less until every child grows up.

Except for one.

Matt is waiting in his room, head pillowed on the oversized sleeves resting against his knees, sitting at the foot of the bed. He doesn't move as Near lowers himself to sit beside of him. The rusted springs press at his side, preventing him from leaning closer, and his fingers move to twine in his forelock.

"You left the window open."

Outside the sky is red and lowering, and Near compares it to the shade of Matt's hair.

"The children may play inside today," Matt non sequiturs, noticing the morning too and the impending intrusions.

Near wants to ask how long he stared out the window before he accepted there would never be a boy to come take him away.

"They will not play at all," he says instead. The rest will be told as three were yesterday, and the lost boys and girls will grow up and tell their own children the bedtime story of the day they stopped believing in heroes. Someone will comment that there was fitting funeral weather.

He eventually rises at the sound of the first raindrops against the pane and shuts the window after some difficulty.

Matt lifts his head at that, and Near decides that he likes the red in his eyes the best of all.

* * *

It had all begun on another rainy day.

They are the best days to play in wardrobes, after all, or so he's been told.

Passing by on his way to play in the common room, unusual noises piqued his curiosity and led him to press an ear against the slightly-cracked door. There was faint rustling and a muffled exclamation of either delight or outrage, and laughter he interrupted with a knock to the wood.

"Oh hullo Near," Matt's head had been the one to peek out, his soft features lighting up with an equally just-so smile. "What are you doing?"

He held up his newest toy, a seafoam-green crocodile with braille-like scales and ball-and-socket tail, Matt accepting to turn it every-which-way. Secondhand from some toy drive, a screw or other forgotten play piece rattled about in its belly. He finally returned it, pronouncing it of sound quality. Usually after his blessing Matt would bring out his own toy to play with him, but Near senses his distraction and purposefully makes no move to leave.

"Do you want to play with us?"

He opened the door wider, enough to reveal that he'd thrown an enormous fur coat over his ill-fitting sweater, hanging lopsided to the left and only emphasizing his scrawny body. "The coats weren't really in here; Roger loaned these to us-" That plural again. "-but you can go ask for your own to wear and play properly."

Staring over his shoulder was the newest addition to the house, a boy he only knew by reputation. The coat looked almost fitting, despite the hanging sleeves and shedding hairs; no whimsical child playing at dress up. His sweet, mocking mouth twisted into something like a leer and for the first time in his young life, Near felt as if he was the one who had lost a secret.

He declined the coat, but skimmed his hand alongside the smooth material of Matt's own as he climbed inside and stared back.

The rest of their playtime was tedious, Near listening to the sound of two boys bumping into one another in the dark and exploring every non-magical inch of the wardrobe. Finally admitting temporary defeat to huddle somewhere he couldn't see, to whisper of kings and lions and countries between a lamp-post and the great castle of Cair Paravel. The scent of moth balls or something else in the air made his eyes water.

Afterwards, he read the story. He didn't understand what sort of appeal a thinly-veiled symbolic tale about unrealistic expectations held for anyone. And he didn't play with them again.

For the longest time when the two passed by the other boy would suddenly recount how that day they almost smelled snow in the wardrobe or for a moment in there was the sound of a far-off pan flute. But there was always tomorrow for the two of them, wasn't there? And one would pull the other away, ever-together, a boy and his shadow.

* * *

"I think what I always liked best about those stories wasn't where the people went or what they did," Matt says late that night, after all the other children have gone to bed. "I always liked that they always came home safe and whole and life went on again."

He doesn't say, _But don't you think the children had to adjust back to a world without mermaids and talking animals and bodies that would age again?_

Or, _Maybe Wendy sometimes regretted growing up after all, or did you ever think the eldest Pevensie girl was angry she was forced out of paradise?_

He thinks of illusions of grandeur and lies parents spoon-feed their children like daily medicine to fool them into thinking that there was some good left; if not in their own world then one that was barely-but always-out of reach.

Instead, only when he is certain the boy is dreaming, Near asks, "Why can't we remain like this forever?"

There is no Neverland.

Nothing waits for them in the back of the wardrobe.

There is something stronger than deep magic stabbing straight into a heart. A poison with no antidote of repeated mantras and clapping. Downstairs, the clock strikes again, and he is still the only one to hear. For something that's purpose is solely to measure time, it cares so little about the fleeting passage of it.

Near stays for a while longer, until he's sure Matt will not wake. If he looks he would see that what was hidden in the corner of his mouth is now gone, stolen by a boy maybe half a world away. He pats his pocket, feeling heavy with his own thimble he will never give, and wonders if all was lost long before the thief left through a window and towards his own star, straight on to morning.

He lingers at the door and wonders if he could have ever kept him.

* * *

Mello stops Matt from ever coming back.

Some nights Near likes to think it's just because he's forgotten how to fly.


End file.
